Abstract:
The AfrAsia bank released “Global Migration Report 2019”, and “New World Wealth” in 2019. These reports show wealth circulation trends in the past decade and forecast trends in the next decade. Around 90 countries and 150 cities with major markets are examined in this report. The main definitions in these reports are:
- Millionaire: Who have wealth equal to or more than one million US dollars.
- Wealth: refers to Net assets which means that everything you own (your assets) minus your commitments. Assets includes property, cash, stocks and business benefits.
- Total wealth: sum of the private wealth of individuals in each country or city.
Some scholars for several reasons consider “wealth” as a better indicator for understanding health of economies rather than GDP:
- In developing countries, a large portion of GDP is allocated to governments and have no effect on individual wealth.
- The problem of double counting (twice or several times) in calculating GDP.
- GDP grows slightly each year and it is relatively static. Therefore, it may not be a proper indicator for evaluating economy’s efficiency.
- GDP is an indicator that ignores effects of asset transferring and stock markets. These two factors strongly influence wealth which means that by measuring wealth, the effects of asset transferring and stock markets become apparent.
By considering this issue, wealth circulation trends are a proper tool for measuring health of economies. For example, if many millionaires migrate to other countries, it might be related to several reasons such as (crime, lack of business opportunities, religious tensions, etc.). However, millionaire class in case of adverse events in a country is much prone to migrate to other countries than the middle class; due to available migration possibilities and facilities for them. It should be noticed that, migration of millionaires have negative effects on economies in origin countries. While some countries such as Australia and U.S. which are attracting millionaires in compare to other countries have a healthier economy, lower crime rates, better education, and business opportunities.
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